


The Night Gave You a Song

by Lastavica



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Assassination, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Courage, Everything can change in an instant, Freedom, Gen, I LOVE NATASHA ROMANOFF!!!!, I'd like to wipe it out., I've got red in my ledger., Inspired by Music, Natasha Defects from the Red Room, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, On the Run, One Shot, Peace, Pre-Avengers (2012), Realization, Red Room (Marvel), Siberia, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 23:56:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20034448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lastavica/pseuds/Lastavica
Summary: A light had been turned on. You walked out in the world like you belonged there.





	The Night Gave You a Song

The mission had been simple enough and she had completed it like any other. Five hearts were no longer beating and the Red Room would smile on her work. She felt neither good nor bad. It was her duty and she had fulfilled it. Due to the location of her targets, extraction had not been possible. This assignment required her to trek deep into Siberian wilderness and back out again. It was nothing she couldn't handle. Away from base for over two weeks, it was her longest solo assignment thus far. The way back was quiet, her mind clear now that the job was done. Her only companions were the sound of her boots crunching across the snow and the all encompassing silence of the frigid landscape. Never before had she so much time to herself. Without needing to think eight steps ahead, she simply plodded her course and let her mind wander. It wasn't a conscious choice and she wasn't even aware she was experiencing something new.

Camping in the forests by day and moving by night she ensured that her very existence remained a rumor, a shadow. She found one moonlit night that she had not thought about "home" in hours. Her mind had strayed, wandered, come up empty and had soaked in the land and the stars.

She couldn't name it but right there, standing on the glittering snow beneath the moon, was the first time she felt at ease. It was a new and strange feeling. Pleasure, but not the kind aquired from fulfulling her duty or the satiation from a meal, or rest after grueling training. It was something simple and gentle and she liked it.

In the perfect silence, Natalia had experienced peace for the first time in her entire life. She could not have said so, but she knew instinctively that the feeling would vanish upon her return to the Red Room. All of the sudden she realized she wasn't willing to turn it over to them. It was at that moment she knew she had to leave. She did not think eight steps ahead. She acted on a feeling, and disappeared into the night. Moving south in the direction of China, she had nothing but what she carried. There was time before her expected check in. She could put extreme distance between herself and the Red Room by then. They would kill her, but they would have to find her first.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration, title & summary are from the opening line of the song "The Little Things That Give You Away" by U2. And it's my favorite song on their album, "Songs of Experience".


End file.
